Tips on saving on insurance premium

Should a person spend on average RM200/mth on insurance, in 10 years of paying the premium he/she would have contributed RM 24K.

Assuming a person takes up insurance at the age of 25, at age 60 (retirement age) he/she would have paid RM 84,000!

Do note that the premium payment does not stop at age 60, as the client is required to pay, even after retirement if he/she wants to keep getting protected, especially the medical insurance.

So what are the ways to save on insurance premium? Well, first lets take a look at how insurance works.

Insurance is a business of risk transference. Whenever someone does not buy insurance, he/she is having 100% of the financial risk against human events such as hospitalization bills, death, total disability, critical illness.

By transferring the risk to the insurance company, and the client agrees to pay certain 'fee' called insurance charges, the insurance company in turn agrees to 'insure' the client against financial losses due to the said event as stipulated in the contract.

The first trick in order to save on premium is transfer 'lesser' risk to the insurer. In insurance term, it is called 'deductibles' or 'co-insurance'. Westerners call it 'excess'.

Also known as 'cost-sharing-concept' by the insurance company whereby the client agrees to share the bill, more often something that is 'affordable' to the client.

For co-insurance, there are various plans that offers different level of cost sharing.

1. As inpatient (meaning if the client is admitted to the hospital): A minimum RM 300 or 10% and up to a maximum of RM 1,000 co-insurance shall apply.
2. As outpatient (meaning if the client is not admitted to the hospital): A 10% and up to a maximum of RM 2,000 co-insurance shall apply.

For deductible, there are options of RM 3,000, RM 10,000, RM 300 deductible.

By incorporating various cost sharing concept, the client is transferring lesser risk to the insurance. Plans with co-insurance or deductible is definitely much more cheaper than plans with full claims.

The thing is, most of us hate to go to hospitals. I would say that no sane person would want to go to the hospital (except for insurance agents because it is our job to do so!) and in our lifetime, we would only probably go 2-3 times for something major.

Hence plans that are offering full cover may sound nice but the fact is, you are already paying the higher premium of which the 'co-insurance' or 'deductible' has already been incorporated.

So guys, do take a look at the various deductible or co-insurance before inking on the lifetime insurance contract.

PRUmy child - Protection starts before birth

Introducing PRUmy child

At Prudential, we can help you secure your hopes and dreams for your child through a comprehensive protection plan withPRUmy child as early as 18 weeks into pregnancy.

Aiming to give you peace of mind, the new Infant Care benefit under PRUmy child provides protection during the crucial prenatal, neonatal and post-natal periods.

Read all about PRUmychild - http://www.prumychild.com.my/about.html

PRUsenior medical

It’s easy to put it at the back of your mind, but the truth is the older you get, the more likely is your need for health insurance.

While many people are covered by employer’s medical plans, once you retire the coverage stops and you may be left with no medical coverage at the time when illness and hospitalisation becomes more frequent.

This is the reason you should plan ahead when you have good health. As the company that listens and understands your needs, we have a product that makes this possible.

PRUsenior med takes care of your hospitalisation and surgical costs just when you need it most.

Click here for a complete Guide of PRUsenior Med

Insurance 101

Insurance 101

Insurance is meant for protection, NEVER was it meant for investments. As the word suggest, the word Insurance means 'to insure'.

In the context of Insurance, even if the plan is called Investment Linked Policy (ILP), it does NOT mean that it is for investment!

The main purpose of ILP over the traditional plan is that the premiums being paid are subjected to the performance of the underlying funds and it in turn will generate cash values over time. 

Since the insurance charges will go up as we grow older, the cash values generated along the years can be utilized to pay off the higher insurance charges at older age in order to maintain the policy. Think of it as a form of financial planning for taking care of your insurance needs at older age.

That said, it does not perform like pure unit trust as the accumulated cash values are subjected to insurance charges when pure mutual fund is not.

If you read the proposal form you will see a very clear wording in bold that says that your insurance charges will go up by age. Even if your premium payment does not go up, your insurance charges will.

Insurance is a business of risk management. Based on the ascertain risk and the premium payment, the insurer agrees to 'underwrite' and provide the necessary coverage.

The risk here can be in the form of age (the older we get the higher the chances of us claiming), smoking status, gender, occupation (a construction worker has the higher chance of being involved in work prone accident vs an office worker) & health status during the inception of the policy.

An example is the car insurance. For cars that are over 10 years and above a loading (extra premium) may be imposed and can be as high as 100%. In addition, do note that as long as you want to drive the car, the premium will need to be paid. 

On the health insurance, if the medical card is to cover a term of up to age 80, the insurance charges will also need to be paid till age 80.

Take note that I mention insurance charge, not the monthly premium.The projected insurance charges is outlined in the quotation together with the projected cash values (high and low).

As I said, the insurance charges goes up by age, for example when we are in our 30s, the insurance charges may be in the range of Rm 1500 per year. This means if we are paying a premium of Rm1800 year, it is sufficient to cover for the insurance charges. However, when we are 60-65 the insurance charges is now Rm3,000 per year!

This means our premium of RM1800 is not sufficient to cover for the insurance charges at later years. When that happens, the variance of the insurance charges will need to be deducted from your cash values accumulated throughout the years, or you will need to do a top up.

Otherwise your policy may be at risk of lapsing even before the end of the term even if you are still paying the premium.

Sure, some agents will say that you can opt to withdraw the accumulated cash values, this is pure sales talk, whereby clients always like to hear when they get money, who doesn't, right? If you were to withdraw the cash values and when the insurance charges goes up, the policy may lapse prematurely and you’ll lose the protection benefits even more earlier than expected.

Always buy insurance with PROTECTION in mind, NEVER for investments. There is no investments here in the context of insurance, only protection.

To the readers of this blog, it is sad when insurance product is being sold as investments, and it is not only being practice in insurance companies, but banks who sells insurance plans. Go up to any bank and ask for good savings plans. Most probably you’ll end up with an insurance plan that promise to give you an exorbitant returns but when you calculate the Returns Of Investments (ROI), it may even be worse than the bank Fixed Deposit Rate (FD)!.

However, if you had bought any insurance plans, my advise to you is that do not cancel the plan until you had the chance to do a review and understand what it was meant to cover for.

Whether you buy the insurance from Prudential or from other insurance company, no matter how good or bad the agent’s explanation is to you, one fact still remains, you buy it for its protection values.

Also the claims are being paid by the insurance company, and not the agent. We are all humans, and cannot run away from serious illness/death. We will eventually need to seek treatment at the hospital and that is where huge medical bills may be needed.

Having seen a sight of relieve for having a medical card cover for having a heart bypass that costs RM80k is very common. THIS IS WHAT INSURANCE IS ALL ABOUT.

Feel free to leave a questions if you have any :-

Email: stevenung1971@ gmail.com 

Hand Phone/Whatsapp: 016-451 5957

Skype: roy.steven.ung

Hurry! PRUflexi Medical Card Upgrading Campaign

Please be informed that Prudential's PRUflexi med medical card upgrading which was started since Jan 2013 is going to end in June 2013. has been extended until 31st Dec 2013 due to overwhelming response.

As you may know, medical at the private hospital can be rather costly and if not upgraded may not be sufficient in the event of a major claim. 

This upgrading is specially targeted at older medical cards with lifetime limit of less than RM 500K. For older medical card with RM 150K lifetime limit, upgrading to the PRUflexi med minimum plan will upgrade the lifetime limit to RM 500K!

Kindly get in touch with your agent to know if you are being selected for the upgrading. If you are selected for the upgrade, the older medical cards with superior terms (for example, take home drugs, consultation charges & long term medication) will be retained if you are selected.

If you have any questions please ask. Thanks.

Many have irregular heartbeats

Source: < The Star: Many have irregular heartbeats >

KUALA LUMPUR: Unknown to them, thousands of Malaysians are walking time bombs liable to explode anytime.

These people are unaware they have irregular heartbeats which could lead to blood clots or burst arteries that could result in death or severe physical incapacitation such as paralysis.

Atrial Fibrillation-Strike Out Stroke chairman Prof Dr Sim Kui Hian said 20% out of 49,000 patients with high blood pressure, were discovered to have irregular heartbeats.

“This does not include the diabetic group or other chronic diseases,” he said in a press conference yesterday after the launch of the Atrial Fibrillation-Strike Out Stroke in Malaysia book for medical care providers.

Dr Sim said one in five amongst the elderly suffered from irregular heartbeat or artrial fibrillation (AF) and that irregular heartbeat contributed to 15% of all stroke cases.

Deputy Health Director-General (Medical) Datuk Dr S. Jeyaindran said the prevalence of AF in Malaysia was 6.2% and it was much higher than the average 4% in other countries.

He said studies carried out last year in Hospital Kuala Lumpur looked at every fifth person out of 5,000 patients treated for non-communicable diseases.

Dr Jeyaindran said 46% of those aged 30 and above suffered from hypertension according to the National Health and Morbidity Survey.

“This is very high,” he said.

He urged doctors to monitor people from high risk groups such as smokers and those suffering from hypertension or diabetes.

He said patients could be treated with blood thinning medication if they have irregular heartbeat and this would help reduce their risk of a stroke.

Ultimately, Dr Jeyaindran urged people to adopt lifestyle changes such as reducing their salt and sugar intake.

Malaysian Society of Neurology president Prof Dr Hamidon Basri said once a person suffers a stroke, their condition would deteriorate at 5% every year.

He also said people were wrong to think they would be okay after overcoming mini strokes.

Prof Dr Hamidon added mini strokes were an indication that a bigger one (stroke) was on its way and patients must be continuously monitored because of this.

In his speech, Health Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Health Ministry’s publication, Health Facts 2012, reported that cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of mortality in hospitals, accounting for 25.64% of all deaths in 2011.

Medical Card "Guaranteed Renewal" & "Waiver of Premium"

While shopping for a medical card or health insurance, always know what you are buying. Cheap products doesn't always necessary mean it is good. You get what you're buying for.

For a medical card that is not guaranteed to be renewed, once substantial claims had been made, the next year even if you are able to pay for the premium, the insurer will deny coverage to the medical card.

For a medical card that is guaranteed renewal, if you've already made substantial amount of claims, the next policy year the annual limit will be refreshed, and you can claim up to the maximum lifetime limit it allows you to do so.

However, do note that once a substantial amount of claim has been made, there is a possibility of the condition may be excluded or even rejected for UPGRADING or getting a SECOND medical card from the same or from another insurance company.

If the claim is under Critical Illness claim, policy with waiver will also waived the future premiums paid, subject to the terms and conditions as stipulated in the 36 Critical Illness.

Waiver of premiums here means the insurer will take over the policy and pay on our behalf and it does not mean that the policy is FREE.

For example, if the person was diagnosed with cancer at age 30, survived it, and the medical card is up to age 80, the premiums will be waived till age 80. 

However, at older age the insurance charges may still go up and if there is not enough funds to cover the increased insurance charges, we are still required to do top ups in order to maintain the policy.

Hence, if the policy is with a large Critical illness being attached to the policy, claiming that out would 'free' up the premium and the premium paid by the insurer will automatically be allocated to buying you even more units into your cash values. 

That would at least provide some peace of mind that the policy will not need to be top up at later years.

/promo Prudential medical cards are guaranteed to be renewed 

Insurance Statement for Income Tax 2012

Please be informed that Prudential is currently sending out Insurance Statement for the premiums paid for year 2012.

Kindly get in touch with your servicing agent if you haven't receive the statement.

Alternatively you can call our customer service hotline at 03-2116 0288. Before calling, do standby your policy no. The policy no can also be found in your medical card.

Medical Card Upgrading Exercise (PRUflexi med)

Please be informed that Prudential has been running the medical card upgrading exercise since Jan 2013.

The upgrading exercise is being offered to those selected few and will ends on Jun 30th 2013.

Clients whom had bought the medical card with superior terms and if selected for the upgrade shall retain the superior terms should they choose to upgrade to the newest PRUflexi med card.

The superior terms in older medical card covers the following for Cancer Treatment & Kidney Dialysis:-
1. Take home drugs
2.  Long term medication
3. Consultation charges

For more information on PRUflexi med << CLICK HERE >>

Hurry get in touch with your Prudential Servicing Agent today! If your agent has is no longer in the business, you may email to me on how to arrange for the upgrading.

My email address is stevenung1971@gmail.com or SMS to 016-451 5957. All correspondent will be treated with the utmost confidentiality.

What is INSURANCE?

The word INSURANCE, means to insure and its main purpose is for protection, it is never meant for investments.

Even if the insurance plan name is Investment Linked, its main purpose is to provide protection, not investment.

Sadly it has been twisted to sound more like investments/savings, something the client will want to hear.

After all, how many of us are willing to listen to an agent that comes to us and talks about us dying, about us being critically ill, or about us claiming for the medical insurance?

When you buy insurance, you are actually buying the COVERAGE associated with it. You are not buying investment. The higher the coverage, the higher the premium will be.

One thing that many people are not aware of is that even though your premium is levelled, the insurance charges is not. You see, as we grow older, our RISK of claiming is higher, and so is our insurance charges.

Insurance charges goes up by age IRRESPECTIVE of when you get it.For example, when we are age 30s, our medical insurance charges may be in the range of RM 1500/year. Hence if we are paying a premium of RM 1800/year, it is able to cover for the insurance charges.

However when we are in our 60/65 our insurance charges will be around RM 3K/year. This means that the premium is no longer able to sustain the policy and the variance of the insurance charges will have to be deducted from your cash values which was accumulated throughout the years.

Once the premium + cash values is less than the insurance charges your policy will need to top up (even if you're still paying the premium) or risk having the policy lapse prematurely before the end of the term.

Disclaimer: The above illustrations is for the reader's understanding on how insurance charges works. It may vary from your policy, depending on the benefits being attached to the policy.